


Show Me a Piece of Your Heart

by BloodyAbattoir



Category: Eragon (2006), Once Upon a Time (TV), The Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini
Genre: Biting, Knifeplay, Magic, Magically Ripping Out A Heart, Mind Control, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, Not Canon Compliant, Once Upon a Time (TV) References, Rough Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodyAbattoir/pseuds/BloodyAbattoir
Summary: Stabbing a Shade through the heart guarantees death. Ripping out that heart, however, leads to some interesting side effects.





	Show Me a Piece of Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Not really a cross over. We just borrow the idea of ripping out a heart to control or kill someone. There's nothing too explicit in here, but it's a bit on the suggestive side, so the warnings are tagged as such. Assumed to exist somewhere after Eragon busts into Gil'ead like a dumbass in search of an elf he's never met before, but before the battle of Farthen Dur where the Spook is killed.

It's late. The inhabitants of the fortress have by and far gone to sleep hours before. The candles sputter low in their holders, flames fighting for life, waning and waxing. The fire in the fireplace has long since burned down to warm embers. With the windows barred as they are, the room lies in darkness. Your vision is impaired by the lack of light, but your hearing is not. From the other side of the room comes the sound of strained breathing, and the creak of someone struggling against chains. 

 

You roll your eyes, and a flick of your wrist sends fresh wood on to the dying coals. They land in the fireplace with a crackling noise, and send new sparks flying up into the air. The darkness in the room recedes far enough that you are able to discern the contents of the room with minimal issue. Seeing your target slumped on the floor in a heap brought a smile to your lips. 

 

A few long steps brings you over to the prone figure. Now, you could make out the horrifying features, the deathly skin, the too-pointed teeth that could rip out a mans throat in a heartbeat. Yes, you had captured yourself a Shade, the very self-same one that the mad king considered his second in command. 

 

From the floor, he snarls at you, and makes to lunge at you. The chains hold, and he does nothing more than manage to throw himself a foot to the right. You give him a once-over. Even in this dim light, you could tell that he has worked up a sweat trying to free himself, his skin glistening in the light. His hair, normally tidy with nary a strand out of place is disheveled and snarled. Idly, you think that in this dim light, the crimson strands look almost black, like congealed blood. 

 

Finally, he finds his words, and you recognize them as magic. Despite yourself, you flinch, expecting the worst. When you finally open your eyes and unscrew your face, nothing has changed, save for his expression. A myriad of emotions flutter across his face - rage, confusion, shock, and finally, blessedly, fear. 

 

The vile thing that crushed countless souls under one pointed boot was terrified of you. 

 

As his fear grew, yours shrank. You felt a grin, wide and manic, spreading across your face. You couldn't help but ask him, how did it feel to be on the receiving end? How did it feel to know that by the time the sun rose, he would be dead? Did it scare him? Would he beg you to spare him? Was there anything human enough left inside of him to beg for mercy? 

 

You weren't expecting an answer. Nor were you expecting him to freeze up, an unreadable expression on his face. He was measuring you, cold and calculating as always, but yet, this time, there was something else behind that. He had never expected you to get this far, and had always banked on having magic on his side. To be fair, so had you - you'd expected to be slaughtered long before you'd even be able to knock him off his feet like this. 

 

Somewhere under the rule of the spirits, there was still something very human, very small, very suppressed, fighting to continue to live. 

 

Emboldened by this notion, you take a step closer. Your toes are almost touching him. He looks at you, part in confusion, part in contempt. You kneel down, one hand coming to brush the hair out of his face. It would be almost tender, if there wasn't the unsaid threats hanging over both of you, the animosity in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife. Then, almost on cue, the insults. The threats. The demands. Stop touching him. Let him go. Who were you? Why were you doing this? You'll be killed if you don't free him. He would kill your family too. On and on and on and on. 

 

You rolled his eyes at him. Was he quite done with that outburst? If he behaved himself, maybe this wouldn't be as bad as it otherwise could be. You made sure to remind him of that, but you weren't sure that your message was well received, if the deadly maroon glare you received was anything to go by. 

 

You heaved a sigh, waving your hand in the general direction of his chest. His armor seemed to liquefy and melt away from his body, leaving him bare from the waist up. That was enough to cause him to freeze, barely breathing, eyes trained on you.  His lips parted as if to say something else, but you tapped a finger against them, hushing him before he was able to get a word out. 

 

Seeing the slightest shift in demeanor, you yanked your hand back a moment before you would've lost your finger. You didn't really think that he'd stoop to such a level, and you said as much. The once proud daemon, reduced to nothing but a wreck, lashing out in a way that would make a peasant woman embarrassed. 

 

If only he had just let you do what you had planned to do, none of this would be an issue. He would've suffered a bit, then gone on to whatever miserable existence he had carried on before he met you. Instead, he chose to incur your wrath. You fully intended to let him have it. 

 

The back of your hand connects with the side of his cheek. His head snaps to one side. One of your rings has broken skin, drawn blood. A bruise would rapidly be forming, assuming he was still capable of bruising. It was abrupt and vicious and unrefined. It was perfect. It had set him off balance. No longer would he think that you would stick to the niceties of nobility. If he were going to attack you like a common dog, you would treat him like one. Now, he was painfully aware of it, all puns and linguistics jokes intended. 

 

 He refuses to look at you, choosing instead to study the worn stones that composed the wall. You rolled your eyes and sighed. Of course he would make this as difficult as possible for you. Granted, you could've already killed him as he lay unconscious and bound on the floor hours ago. It would've been a simple task. It should've been. Instead, you wanted to draw this out, have your fun taking the Shade apart piece by piece. 

 

You would make sure that he suffered before he died. 

 

In a flash of silver, your dagger was in your hand. It wasn't much use in battle, thin and delicate as it was, built to impress rather than function. What it lacked in durability it more than made up for in looks, dramatic and over the top. Thankfully, it would withstand a solid stab through bare flesh, and was honed to a sharp edge. Now that you thought about it, the only way you could add further insult to injury would be if you were to stab him with the knife of a fishmonger. You wondered idly if you had enough time to go obtain a less impressive weapon before someone else came in to save his pasty white arse, but you thought better of it. Your need for showiness and dramatics was matched only by the entity that you were crouched over. 

 

Slowly, ever so slowly, you dragged the tip of the dagger over his chest. Tiny beads of blood welled up in its wake. He was looking right at you now, as if he couldn't believe what you were doing. He starts to question you. Who do you think you are? Why are you doing this? At the end of his questions, his voice cracks oh so slightly. If you weren't looking for it, you would've missed it entirely. He was breaking. 

 

You laugh at him for asking. He already knows the answers to those questions. So what if you wanted to play with your prey a little before killing it? Not to mention, at this point, he had no right to question who you were, who you thought you were, to question anything, really. All that mattered was that you were the one with all of the power here, and he was at your mercy. There was nothing more to understand.

 

You paused for a moment, lifting the dagger off his chest entirely. He lets out the faintest sigh of relief. You've opened up a single thin line in his flesh, cutting him open from just below one collar bone to the bottom of his rib cage. It's a shallow wound, deep enough to be annoying at worst, painful at best, but nowhere near life threatening. Watching him breathe, you could tell that any breath that was too deep would force the edges of the wound open ever so slightly. 

 

You pause in thought, twirling your knife in your hand. 

 

Then you were on him again, pinning him to the floor with the weight of your body. One hand is on his chest, roaming, searching. His flesh is cold under your palm. It's almost like touching a corpse. Finally, you've found it. His heart, hammering away under that sickly skin. You didn't think he had one. 

 

The point of the knife presses into him, right above his heart.  Just a single jab, and this world would be rid of the Shade, once and for all. Both of you know it. He's trying to hold still now, as if by complying with your insanity he would be spared. How cute. 

 

You put just a bit more pressure onto the handle of the knife. It draws blood, this time. Just a tiny dot of it, but enough to get your point across. 

 

You could just kill him on the spot. It would certainly be fitting. He was a monster, and you would kill him like the beast that he was. And yet, you hesitated. You'd certainly humiliated him enough before killing him. Then you remember something that you'd been told a lifetime ago.

 

Death was too good for the likes of him. 

 

If you remembered correctly, there was a way to rip someone's heart out with magic, and yet, leave them fully alive and well, your pawn to do your bidding. You'd certainly seen it used before in the Enchanted forest. You weren't sure if it would work here, but the way that you viewed it, it was no great loss. If you succeeded, well the bastard would just have to suffer. If you failed and he died, it would've been what you'd planned to do to him originally. 

 

This in mind, you cast aside your knife. It hits the stone floors with a clatter and you wince. You made a mental note to check it afterwards, make sure that it wasn't damaged. After all, you were rather fond of it. 

 

He looks at you in confusion. This was going exactly counter to what he was anticipating. 

 

You grinned. Oh, if this worked, it would be a fate worse than death. He would be begging for death by the time that you were through with him. 

 

You held up one hand, making a dramatic show of taking your glove off with your teeth. The tight leather slowly comes off your hand, revealing long chipped nails. If you turned them the right way, they almost looked like they were made out of shards of glass in the faint moonlight that trickled in through the window. Perfect. 

 

He shook his head faintly, attempting to pull away. If he was afraid before, he was downright terrified now. You could feel his pulse racing like a trapped rabbit beneath you. He knew exactly what you were going to do.  

 

You paused for a moment, then sank your hand up to the wrist in his chest. His flesh squishes under your hand, and he lets out a gasp. You dig your hand around in his chest, rooting around, until finally, you prod something that feels oddly like a crystal. Based off the whimper that he lets out when you poke it experimentally with one nail, you know that you've found your prize. 

 

Closing your hand around his heart, you pluck it straight from his chest. 

 

It offers surprisingly little resistance, and comes out of his chest with a sickening squelch. He lets out a faint moan, and you let out a giggle. You've succeeded. You inspect the heart that you hold in your hand. 

 

Something is wrong. 

 

Even in the poor lighting, you can tell that the heart is the wrong color. The few times that you've seen a still-beating heart ripped out of someone's chest, the organ was bright red like a ruby, and it glowed from the inside. Meanwhile, his heart is pure black. It doesn't glow, but instead seems to suck all the light in the room into it. His heart was darker than any you'd ever seen, no doubt due to the sheer number of evil acts that he had done over the span of his crooked life. 

 

Out of curiosity, you give it a squeeze. He cries out and thrashes as much as he is capable of with the chains wrapped around him. 

 

You loosen your hand, and he lays still once more. He's gasping for air and looking at you, fear and hatred written across his features. 

 

You remind him how pathetic he was. No doubt, it echoed some of the many similar speeches that he has given to his other victims in the past, if the look of recognition on his face is anything to go by. He shakes his head. There was no way that you were supposed to know that. Oh, but the fact remained, you knew. You knew so many intimate details about his crimes, only because of the fact that he was your prey. You'd been stalking him for months, years, spying on him from a distance. 

 

This was obviously a surprise to him. Why should it be? After all, you weren't stupid enough to charge into this unprepared, unlike a certain ignorant Rider. 

 

You lean down, pressing a kiss to his lips. He tastes of death and the arid winds of the Hadrac Desert. Then, those vicious teeth, more at home on a shark than a man sink into your lips. They draw blood. Your hand reflexively clenches around the shriveled heart still in your grasp. He lets out a gasp of pain. It's enough to free you. 

 

You run your free hand over your injured lip once more. It doesn't seem as if his teeth have ripped off your lips, or punctured them so badly that you were left with a gaping hold. All in all, you'd had worse, and while it may be painful and annoying, there would be no lasting damage. You shrug it off, kissing him again. The sharp teeth press into your tongue and clicks against your own teeth. 

 

This time, he does not resist. 

 

Both of you know that another attack like that would result in his death. Somehow, despite the fact that he is a conglomeration of demons inhabiting a human body, an abomination of nature, you can tell that he doesn't want to die. Not yet, not like this.

 

 When you finally pull away, both of you are out of breath, and he is trembling below you, high off the taste of your blood flooding his mouth. By the way that his jaw moves, you can tell that he's trying to collect every last tainted drop out of his mouth, savouring it like a fine wine. Behind you, the fire has burned down to warm embers. Outside, the darkness has started to lighten, and streaks of pink are visible far to the east. 

 

You pull away from him, standing once more. Down the hallway, there is the echo of footsteps, voices. Someone is coming. With a snap of your fingers, the chains holding the Shade dissolves. The heart disappears into one of your many pockets, and you are hopping out the window. 

 

The kingdom is almost yours for the taking. 

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Torturing my favorite character? More likely than you think!


End file.
